Today’s story is, “Hunting Dog,” the second in Kindling’s first ever short story collection, Lights Out. Inspired by folk horror and mythology, this collection of short stories will explore the unknown, the consequences of touching the forbidden, and the mysteries that lurk in the dark, unexplored places of the world.
Inspired by my early exposure to horror, dark sci-fi and dark fantasy through anthologies and collections such as, Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark, The Illustrated Man, The Twilight Zone, and Tales From the Crypt.
“Why he takes the damn dog with him I’ll never know. She isn’t even a hunting breed.”
“Why do you care?”
Her eyes narrowed when she looked at him, but she went on. “Last time the stupid thing ran off near dusk! ‘She smelled something,’ was his excuse for her. He damn near ended up lost in the woods. Found her alright. She could never be lost long the way she howls.”
“Maybe she smelled something.” He took another bite of bacon, and pretended not to notice her disgust as she watched him chew the white rubbery fat. He could hear her swallow heavy before she went on.
“You sound more and more like your father everyday.”
He said nothing to this, his eyes lowered like they always were around her. He had learned early in life that the best way to survive in this house was to stay out of the way. Feel nothing. Betray nothing. She sipped her coffee, always black and extremely bitter.
“Well I’m not feeding that dog for nothing. My daddy taught me that animals are for working, not worshipping. What good is a huntin’ dog who can’t hunt!”
He shrugged his shoulders, and she smiled, feeling she had got him. In truth, he knew nothing he said about the dog would make any difference. “What do you plan to do?”
His eyes met hers, and her chest puffed, the rare attention strengthening her resolve.
“She’s got one more hunting trip with him coming up in two weeks. If she can’t prove she’s worth her keep, I might just boil her up into a stew and eat her myself.”
He looked disgusted, but only said, “She’s a stringy thing. Won’t be much meat on her.”
“We’ll make soup. Whatever is there will make for good eating. Better than the roadkill she sniffs out.”
“I seen a buck along the trail, not two weeks ago. Would make for better eating.”
She smiled. “Honey, you know soup is my favorite.”
He shoved his plate away and stood, the corners of dry toast and some crumbs left untouched.
“You gonna just leave that?”
“Give it to the dog,” he said, and turned on his heels to leave the house. Had he turned back he would have seen that she had shoved the crunching pieces into her mouth, and with her nose to the porcelain, licked up the remaining crumbs from his plate.
His mother had always been a hard woman, but with the cold coming and the lack of game meat, she had grown worse. Everyday it seemed, she plotted against the hound that lived behind the house. It was true, what she said about her. She was no good at hunting, and seemed easily spooked in the acres of wild land in the woods beyond.
Still, she was a good dog, lean and muscular, with eyes that loved you just as you were. He walked up to the little patch of fenced-in yard where she lived alone most days, chained except at night, when she was locked in her dog house to keep her safe from predators. Her tail wagged as he approached, her brown eyes staring up hopefully.
He turned back, and waited until his mother left the window she haunted most days when he went out without saying goodbye. A little faded red curtain moved back in place, shutting the view out from the eyes of the rest of the world. He could picture her stomping up the stairs to make the beds, muttering to herself about how everyone on God’s green earth had to earn their keep. That was just the way of it.
His hand was in his jean pocket, growing slick with the grease of the bacon. He pulled it out and her tail started thumping, a happy low bark percolating in her throat.
“Shhhh, quiet girl.” He turned back to the house again, this time examining the upstairs windows just to be sure. Seeing nothing but black, he held out his hand, and let her lick long after the bacon was gone.
When he started back towards the house, he saw the little red curtain fall again, and he knew that she had been watching him.
That night she was quiet. Even his father noticed and tried, for the first time in many months, to make conversation out of the stale air that sat between their bodies. Bodies that were often near, but never touched. At least not from what he could see.
As a boy he imagined that this was the way of all families, but he had been to enough schoolmate’s houses to know it wasn’t true. Many mothers and fathers hugged and kissed, and talked kindly to one another. Many of those parents also hugged and kissed their children, and told them I love you after reading bedtime stories.
His own parents had never done anything like that, and his father, though quiet and powerless against his mother, was a kind man who had taught him all manner of things necessary for life. He thought these things as he ate unsalted potato soup for the fourth time that week, and watched his mother glance out the window to where the dog howled and howled.
He didn’t sleep much that night, and by 3 a.m. he could hear her up and rummaging around the kitchen. She was preparing the same way she always did when it was killing time. In all the years it had not changed. The speech about how hard she worked and no one gave a damn, a theatrical last chance for the hound to prove itself worthy, the inevitable failure she would find in the animal, before raising the shotgun, and putting it down forever. Until the next pup came home, and the sick cycle started again.
Outside, he could hear the dog howl. He got up and went down the stairs. When he rounded the corner, he could see her boiling water for coffee, dressed in her executioners coat and leather boots.
“What are you doing?” She jumped when she saw him, spilling the boiling water down her hand. A cruel smile crawled at the edges of her mouth despite the pain, and he could feel a primal childhood fear roil in his belly. He hated her.
“Really? What am I doing? Have you heard her out there?”
“‘Course. Why do you think I came down?”
She scoffed at him and stood straighter, enjoying the quiet challenge to her authority. “I’m gettin’ ready to take her out to the woods.”
“You can’t shoot her mom! You said you’d give her one more chance—”
“And that’s just what I’m gonna do. Right now. Tonight. This ends.”
He walked to the closet and started to pull on his boots, threw on his coat and coonskin hat he had made when he was still in school.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going with you.”
He shoved past her, and filled his own mug with coffee. He felt in her an anger he couldn’t pin down, like she was angry that the light in him, the one she had been beating at for so long, had refused to go out.
“You know I didn’t think you would have it in you.”
They were miles from home, the sun starting to peek over the hillside as they walked soft-footed along the path that took them deep into the wilds where deer grazed, and then beyond to a lake where geese flocked in summer. The dog followed silently, her tail tucked, ears perked and aware of something in these woods that scared her.
“To do what?” he asked, taking the bait she was offering.
“To try and stop me. Lord knows your daddy never did.”
His hands clenched around his gun. “Shut up about him.”
She laughed, a surprised cackle that would have scared all the prey in a ten mile radius.
“See! Now we’ll never find anything out here. And that’s how you want it right? So you can kill her and feed her to me and dad as some kind of lesson?”
He was gesturing with his rifle without thinking, raising it up and down, letting the butt fall to the ground so he could point to the dog and then back at his mother. Her eyes were flames, her lips tight and showing her teeth. She pointed at him.
“Don’t you dare raise a gun to me boy. This bitch has never done a thing for you. I’ve raised you, fed you, put the clothes on your back and given you everything you have, including the roof over your head. That counts for something.”
Her words hung in the air, and he felt like he might cry, when the dog started to howl. His mother stated, then aimed the rifle at the dog. She was so focused, she didn’t hear the crashing movement in the trees beyond. The light was peeking over the trees, but the forest itself was drenched in the deep purples of fading night.
“Mom,” he tried to say, but she was shouting at the dog to shut up, shut up or she would shut her up for good.
The buck came running wildly out of the dark trees and crashed into her, head flailing as if he was on fire. Leif had never seen anything like it, an animal with a rack so large he must have survived ten seasons in those woods. He cocked his own rifle, aiming at the animal to stop what was about to happen, but it was too late.
He heard a sick whoosh of breath, the air going out of her as the sharp tip of his varied antlers pierced skin and organ, catching on tendons and ligaments. The buck flung wildly, trying to shake her off.
“Leif—” she managed briefly, then gurgled as the deer shook her again.
He stepped back and aimed his gun, firing and missing as the deer bucked, trying to escape the sound of the bullet. He aimed again, this time letting go of his breath, and steadying his hand as he aimed for the ribs. He pressed the trigger, and another shot rang out, this one muffled by the residual ringing in his ears. The animal went down, the sudden puncture to his heart or lungs or both, too much to bear under the weight of Leif’s mother.
She was helpless against him, and she fell too, her body crackling under the weight of the beast. She wheezed and rasped, as Leif fought desperately to pull her from the tangle of antlers. But each time he did, she gurgled in pain. Blood spots were forming on her coat, the antlers poking through in a few places. She would die, and not easily.
The dog sat watching, quiet and attentive, but no longer afraid. Leif felt like he would vomit. His legs had gone weak. He thought he knew what he had to do, but he wanted to say something before he did it.
When he was sure the buck was dead, he sat close to his mother. Her eyes were closed and a trickle of blood had gathered with spittle in the corner of her mouth and dripped down her neck. The dog shimmied up beside him, and lay down contentedly. He stroked her while he talked.
“I know how you think about things. You think you get to decide what a thing is made for, and if it don’t do what you say?” He shook his head, a tear gathering at the corner of his eye
The dog laid her head down and blinked sleepily. He leaned in close to her ear, and her eyes fluttered open. He whispered, “Look where that got you now,” then kissed her head.
He stood and called the dog to his side, taking aim at his mother’s chest.
“Funny how things end up. You thought you’d be eating soup tonight.” She coughed and he whispered again. “It was always your favorite.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but he was already up with the gun aimed at her. He fired.
A bird started from the tree and flew away from them. He watched it against the pink sky, a little black thing moving towards heaven, until it disappeared in the blooming daylight. He sat there a while, thinking about things, then called the dog and started towards home.
He didn’t stop at the little patch of earth cordoned off by stones. The little crosses tottering in the dirt mounds always made him sad. The ones towards the back were moss covered now. He had dug them himself, when she had killed Daisy, his first dog. She was a runt, and would be no good against the wild animals. Wesley had been next, then Mugsy. After that he had stopped naming them.
“Sugar,” he called to her, and she tilted her head for a minute before following.
Close to the path, the dirt was still dark, so fresh that weeds hadn’t taken root. The dog stopped and sniffed the ground around a hole dug there, and he called her to his side without looking back. The stock pot his mother used wasn’t very big, but he would make do. They had the whole day ahead of them, and by the time the sun went down, the dog would be hungry.
The thing I have the hardest time with in any story is cruelty toward animals or an animal's death. So I was absolutely delighted when Mother got her justice. I was a little sad about the buck...but Sugar made up for it. Perfect name for a sweet pup. Perfect ending. Loved it!
Sugar! Loved this.